Thread of Lost Tales: Bismarck of Japan

[The Black Sword]

I had a free class today and thought a bit about civ.

What do I want to tech after Myst and AH? The tech costs are all IIRC.

Poly+Mono(300)
I think I'll have a decent early tech rate and a good shot at Judaism. That's based on choosing high beaker cost techs, first access to Pottery and cottages and settling a silver mine in my second city. That gets me a religion for border pops if I fail on Henge or an opportunity to shrine if I land Henge. I'm not sure how realistic getting both Judaism and Oracle is.

Masonry(100)
Nets me a 1/4/1 stone quarry and access to Mono, GLH, Mids and TGW.

Med+Priest(200)
The Oracle.

MC (500)
Forges and the Colossus.

Writing (170)
OBs, for which we need sailing. I probably don't want any libraries yet. Access to Maths.

Sailing (100)
Possible OBs with Scipio. Access to GLH and galleys to explore a very water-centric map. If no OBs we can at least get IC trade routes. Too early for Moai probably.

Maths(400)
Chops, chops and more chops. We probably want Maths before we think about the Pyramids anyway.

So the 3 big options are Monotheism, Maths and Metal Casing. I think we're looking at getting to one of these between T60-70 with around 7 cities down. I think I like the idea of getting Maths and building the Pyramids before T80 best.

Monotheism is just too expensive and the benefits too small compared to the other options. I'd prefer to lock down the Mids instead of Judaism. Similarly for MC, I'd prefer being certain of the Mids over the Colossus and I think there's only 2 forges I really want straight away at that time, in the capital and the pig city. The chop bonus should be competitive.

So what about the smaller stuff?

I think the Priesthood detour is still worth it if we get the Oracle. The delay in tech is probably almost made up by getting the forge bonus on the Mids.

Sailing can almost pay itself back in trade routes by the time we reach Maths, so that should be good.

Masonry ... I guess the stone quarry is not really worth the delay in other techs. So it's a question of when do we want the wonders. I'm still on the fence about the GLH due to the OBs issue but you have to admit the map is well-suited for it. I still need to think about this, but at the moment I'm tempted to wait until after Maths, then chop out the GLH in the capital and the Mids in the pigs city. If that means we fail on the GLH we can save the forests for something else.

Something else wonders:
MoM - great obviously, Calendar could be pretty weak though.
TGL - particularly if we get the Mids.
Artemis - Again a plus with the Mids. Might be more something to slow build than chop out though.
Parthenon - More Mids synergy!
AP - I'm not sure if it's really worth it without spiritual. I would say you're pretty guaranteed Sankore as well ... but I thought that in PB18 too and Pindicator proved me wrong. If we get a prophet as the first GP and don't want a shrine or a GA then bulb Theo is the next option though.
Taj - might be too far away with the increased tech costs.
Paya - Need a specific plan.
SoZ - Not really something to prioritise I think.

[Ichabod]

What do you study in college, TBS, if you don't mind me asking? Or are you a teacher?

[The Black Sword]

I study maths, currently doing a postgrad though so I'm giving 4-5 classes a week (which was what I was referencing in the previous post, the students just finished a big assignment so no-one showed up for the tutorial).

[Ichabod]

I study maths, currently doing a postgrad though so I'm giving 4-5 classes a week (which was what I was referencing in the previous post, the students just finished a big assignment so no-one showed up for the tutorial).

Next assignment for your students should be about who can micro this start better.

About the game, I really like the idea of beating the Oracle GPro with a forge GEng. Do you think that can beat the timing of a normally built Mids? Because rushing the Mids seems to be by far the best use of a GEng this early. Well, you have stone, but not marble, so perhaps rushing the MoM is better, hammerwise.

It seems to me that Mids + early forges will make you swim in happiness. Do you plan to grow some of your cities very tall early? How many farms would you build in your second city to make it grow faster?

Random questions...

[The Black Sword]

I guess you'd be looking at the engineer around T90 if we got the Oracle. That's later than my current thoughts but still early enough that it might win. No risk of wasting forests/hammers of course.

I don't think I really want an early Academy, since I don't think I want my capital focused on science, so that makes the first GP an interesting problem.

Mids+Forges does mean a lot of excess happiness. I'm not too sure whether I will want to use that immediately to grow. The obvious option would be to delay one of the two happy sources, but the question then is would the delay cost us the Mids and is the 25% production worth it anyway? I guess in the case of Henge -> Maths -> Mids that means MC does not have to be our next big tech. In the case of Oracle -> MC -> Engineer, perhaps we just wait for that engineer if the Mids are not immediately useful.

As for farms in the second city, I thought that first one was obvious because 3fpt working the silver sucks. I want to cottage any tiles shared with the super city. Currently thinking one more farm on it's own tiles makes sense. Might just farm everything if we do get the Mids.

Btw, copper showed up in an awkward spot:




Can I wait 10+ turns for a border pop in the clams/cows city? Is it worth moving that 1S for the copper first ring or settling the filler 1SE of the copper really early? What about teching archery instead? At the moment I've settled on waiting until I get AH and see horses, then make a decision on the location of that city.

Btw, my current map hypothesis is that all the contested land is out on the islands. So Sailing should definitely come early and some scouting WBs might be a good idea too. Archers make the best coastal defenders but they're not so great at projecting power on land.

Scipio's BW-Chop opening does not seem to be working too great for him, he has a second city but his capital is still only size 1. Perhaps he's about to snowball back up to the pack, but right now he's looking like a good roll on the neighbour lottery.

[The Black Sword]

We settled our new home by the sea and immediately put a chop into it's granary. 2t delay on hooking the Deer though. The river forms a trade route between my two cities. I'm spreading out to fogbust this peninsula at the minute. My scout will go to the eastern end to check if that's a dead end or a chokepoint. It looks like a dead end to me, but you can't split 9 people into pairs so a chokepoint makes more sense.

Demos, apparently I didn't grab ones after settling:




I think both Dreylin and Haram have grown to size 4 and are working a plains hill mine there. Haram has plenty of hammers there to get out Stonehenge. I guess we'll see if he wants it. Meanwhile GJ settled his 3rd city on T36, making good use out of Imp. Bottom demos is my neighbour Scipio.

[The Black Sword]

It turns out Haram does want Stonehenge. Looks like we could chop 4 forests into the Oracle in our super-city on the turn Priesthood comes in(T53 I think). Hinduism also fell so Judaism is the only nice border popping method left.

That jungle looks like the same sort of chokepoint to the west. So the map is 3 rings with 3 people on each, that's about half of your land, and the other half is contested islands in between us. It's a pretty cool map concept, I just wish the land borders weren't so easily defined. Perhaps the new naval gameplay might get a run out here.

[Ichabod]

If you can chop the Mids in a city that already has a forge, you can get the GEng even faster (meaning less turns working the engineer specialist, which isn't very good). Not sure if that helps or is feasible. But it would perhaps fit nicely into a plan to use the GEng for the MoM (and then you could use the next GP, the pesky GPro that will eventuallt come, for a boosted GA ).

I think teching archery is better than settling the copper city in a suboptimal spot. Archery is cheap and useful, and you can't risk defending coastal cities with units other than archers (in my opinion) - you never know if there'll be 2 chariots or 2 axes in that enemy galley.

Either that or just fogbust and wait for the copper to get into your borders. With another warrior to the east and a second to the west, there's basically no way for you to be in danger.

[The Black Sword]

I'm still not sure whether I want to try for Oracle or not. There is still some risk involved of Haram beating us, if he wants to take Monarchy then he doesn't need Pottery and could get to Priesthood first. He hasn't made any whips yet and he could double-revolt. On the other hand that's 180 base hammers into wonders inside the first 50 turns and how much of an immediate bonus is Monarchy with access to so much happy sources on this map?

The other option is getting Sailing -> Math and expanding as quickly as I can. Sailing certainly seems like an important tech for this map.

I'm thinking Judaism isn't worth it immediately, it's just so expensive when you also need Meditation and a Monastery or a revolt to get into OR and spread it. Probably it will fall by the time I consider it again. So we're stuck with monuments for border pops and looking at the dotmap a lot of cities could use border pops.

Mids+Engineer would be great, but it sounds like a win-more thing, I'd be more happy to be at MC with the Mids.

For the copper city, I'm leaning toward going for copper first ring. It's not really much worse of a location than the coastal one. I don't really expect much trouble, I'll have my island fogbusted soon and I'll see any invaders in advance. But in the case that I do need copper, it will take forever to hook, between building the monument, popping border and hooking the resource, maybe 20t after the city is settled. I don't think I need to take risks like that. Btw, fortified warrior + roving chariot is also a decent coastal defence.

[The Black Sword]

Borsche is our second land neighbour:



He's Imp too, so I guess the strictly defined land borders are a good thing for me. It looks like our land is mirrored and he settled his city for the first ring cows and shared wheat:




It's a nice hammer city but it does mean he's orphaned the fish. It also means he's teched AH and I'm getting a free beaker from the KTB. He just settled his 3rd city this turn. Long term there's a decent chance we split Scipio so we want to act friendly. My border city will be on the hill West of the corn.